Knight Demons
by cutitout
Summary: Three of the best warriors in Ansem's kingdom were sent to investigate strange occurences by the old sunken castle. They never returned. This is their story. Rating just to be safe. No Pairings. Chapter 3 up.
1. The Assignment

Disclaimer: If I owned any of these characters, I would be too rich to even think about fanfiction.

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The sun beat down on the five figures walking across the courtyard of hollow bastion. Any visitor to the castle would have thought them a strange sight, but the residents knew that the only strange part was seeing all of them in one place. The most prominent among them was Reeves, one of the king's chief advisors. He had black hair, almost shoulder length but pulled back behind his ears. He also had a thin mustache that bent around his mouth then went straight down. He wore a navy blue suit, a white shirt, a black tie, and formal shoes. He had the look of someone who had power and would use it. He walked with the look of someone who knew where he was going, what he was doing, and would bite your head off if you stopped him.

The next most prominent figure was Barret, a huge man, with dark skin and a short fuse. He had a gun grafted into one arm. He looked like he might have been a sailor at one point. He had a bad habit of cursing whenever he got mad, but most people who knew him over looked that. He acted tough, but was really a big softy on the inside. He would do anything for his adopted daughter, Marlene, even if it meant fighting a whole army. He wore a tattered green vest that was torn at the sleeves and had pockets along the front. Under that he wore a plain white shirt, also torn at the sleeves, and he also wore dark blue pants. He had a tattoo of an anchor on his right arm, and an army haircut. He looked annoyed, like he had better things to do than walk with the rest of them.

Next there was Auron. He was dark, mysterious, and pretty much a recluse. He rarely spoke to anyone, and then it was usually to criticize the person he was talking to. He wore a red robe, with one of his arms resting just inside the front of his robe with the hand hanging out. This might have been to trick opponents into thinking he couldn't use that arm. Or it might be just because it was easier to fight with that arm out of the sleeve. Whatever the reason was, he kept it to himself. There was also a sword strapped to his waist. This was one of the more unusual sights as he was the only one of them who had a sword. He also wore a perpetual scowl, giving him the look like he was mad at the world.

Then there was Seto. He wasn't a human, but he was smarter, wiser, and older than pretty much anyone else in the castle. He looked like he was a cross between a wolf and a mountain lion. He had blood red fur, plenty of war scars, and had yellow-green eyes that seemed to look straight into your soul. He was roughly 200 years old, and the only being to remember what the sunken castle looked like. He was only 48 when it sank, but he would never forget how many people had died because the amazing fighters of back then had disappeared when they were needed most. That was why he had dedicated his life to protecting the residents of the new castle, hollow bastion.

Last came Vincent. He was the guy who you knew on sight not to mess with. From his vampire-like high collar on his cape to his golden, claw-like left arm, he looked like he was a character from a horror movie. Not that that was completely inaccurate. Between not having many friends and having demons trying to take control of him, he had a pretty horrific life. His cape was red and slightly tattered, coming down to his ankles and giving him a vampire look. He wore a red headband that held back his shoulder-length black hair from covering his eyes. A triple barreled gun was resting in a holster on the right side of his belt. He gave the impression that he was emotionless and opened his mouth less often than Auron.

"Reeves, why did the king summon us?" Asked Seto in a calm, controlled voice.

"I'm not sure. His father never summoned us all before, but King Ansem is much younger than his father was and might send you on a foolhardy mission that has no point whatsoever."

"YOU SAYIN' THAT I MIGHT BE OUT HERE FOR NO REASON!" Barret exclaimed pointing his gun arm at Reeves.

"That's a big "might" Barret." Reeves replied calmly. "There is a better chance that he is sending you on a mission to retrieve something he needs for his experiments. He is trying to find a way to turn the darkness in people's hearts into something that will help all of us much more than just having anger and bitterness in our hearts."

"Play with fire and get burned." Auron stated in his gruff voice. "This is going to backfire, and the results will be devastating."

"Are you going to criticize the king on what he does?" Retorted Reeves.

"I'm just letting you know that I won't participate in this if we're going after an item that will be used in his experiments."

_'How much longer are they going to argue? It's hurting my ears.' _Complained a maniacal voice inside Vincent's head.

_'Oh shut up Hellmasker, I'm trying to sleep.' _This voice was much more gruff than the last one, and didn't sound quite as insane.

_'You know as well as I do that you don't sleep Death Gigas.' _Retorted Hellmasker, with a mocking note in his voice.

_'And you don't have ears.' _This voice, belonging to Galian Beast, sounded more like a snarl than anything else, but it had the same kind of maniacal.

_'I do to, they're just hard to see!' _Hellmasker sounded defeated. Then, with pleading in his voice, he said _'Vincent tell him I have ears!'_

Vincent ignored all three of them as they continued their fight. That was one of the only ways he could keep from yelling at himself. When he was alone he would sometimes participate in the discussions, but when he was within a mile of anyone he would act like they weren't there.

When they got to the king's audience room, Vincent forced his "inner demons" to be quiet and to take notes on what the king would say. The room looked like it belonged to a rich scientist that spent all of his free time studying one subject and nothing else. There were bookshelves lining the walls, and there were tables next to every shelf covered with strange glass vials and odd instruments.

At the far end of the room was a desk that was covered in stacks of paperwork at least a foot high. About half of them were complaint documents from random citizens saying something about the sunken castle. Behind this sea of paper sat a man with silver hair. It wasn't the kind of silver hair that an old man had, but more like he had decided to die it silver. He was sitting with his face in his hands, like he was tired but couldn't afford to rest.

When they were all in the room, Reeves cleared his throat. The man looked up, revealing a young face that looked like the man hadn't slept in days.

"They are here, King Ansem." Reeves bowed out of the way, allowing the others to move farther into the room.

"Ah, yes, the four great protectors of the kingdom! Welcome, and please, take a seat." The king motioned to a few chairs that were in the room. They sat down and the king continued. "I am sure you all have been wondering why I summoned all of you here from our borders, leaving them more vulnerable to enemy attack." After a few nods from them, he continued. "Well, I have been receiving more than a few complaints from the town residents near the sunken castle. There have been reports of disappearances, strange sightings, and a rock that had inch-deep gouge marks in it."

"Inch deep! What the hell could've done that!" Barret cried, jumping up from his seat.

"That's why I needed you. You see, every knight I sent in there hasn't returned. I thought maybe you would be able to find out what was there and report back to me. If any of you have objections, than I would not stop you from returning to your posts. What do you say, will you do it?"

_'Come on Vinny, let's do it. I've been itching for a fight for a while.' _Once again, Vincent ignored Hellmasker, preferring to use his own judgment than that of a sociopath.

_'Yeah, all we've been fighting lately is loneliness. Nobody in their right mind'll attack us anymore, and we've been cooped up in your mind way too long.'_ Death Gigas was practically groveling, which was hard to do since he was just a voice in Vincent's head.

Vincent ignored the rest of the pleas and listened to what the others were saying.

"It would kill the people's trust in the king if we decided not to do this." Auron clearly didn't want to just abandon his post to explore a castle, but he did bring up a good point. After the recent death of his father, the late king, Ansem was having a very hard time catching up on everything his father left undone. If his subjects thought he didn't have the trust of the four most powerful and respected knights in the kingdom, how many of them would trust him?

"I think we should go." Everyone looked at Seto, shocked. He always avoided the subject of the sunken castle, let alone the castle itself.

"Well if he's goin', I'm goin' too, and ain't nobody's gonna stop me!" Barret had obviously made up his mind.

"I'll go too. I've been by myself for too long." Vincent showed no emotion, but the demons were ecstatic.

"I'll stay and watch the border. We don't want anybody invading while you're gone." Nobody was really surprised that Auron stayed behind. He liked being around people less than Vincent did.

"Good, 3 out of 4. Auron, you may return to your post whenever you like." Ansem smiled as Auron bowed and left the room. It wasn't really hard to tell that he had been hoping one of them would stay behind. "As for the rest of you, Reeves will accompany you as the robot Cait Sith. Rest well, you will leave in the morning."

They all bowed and left, wondering what Cait Sith looked like.

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Ok, don't hate me if it's bad. Just review and let me know.


	2. The Sunken Castle

Ok, I like this chapter a lot more than my last one. Anduril, Chaos was busy learning new tricks on getting Vincent to do what he wanted last chapter, so that's why he wasn't there. I hope all of you enjoy this new chapter.

Disclaimer: I only own the sunken castle. Nothing else yet.

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The sunken castle. It was the oldest and the most beautiful structure around, until the door was opened. Out of the door they came. No warning, no way to survive, no way to stop them. No one inside the castle survived. This was the story everyone knew. Young boys would play a game, seeing who would get closest before getting too scared and running. This is where they were going. And where Vincent didn't want to go.

'_Come on Vincent, where is your sense of adventure?' _Hellmasker was obviously enjoying the fact that Vincent was doing something that wasn't "strategic" or "well thought out".

'_Why did I agree to go in the first place?' _Vincent was also wondering why he was doing something rash.

'_Because I made you.' _This new voice belonged to Chaos who, like Vincent, usually tuned out the others. He was much more successful at this than Vincent, however, simply because the other three knew that to mess with Chaos meant death. Or at least a lot of pain.

'_How?' _Vincent asked accusingly. He didn't like the prospect of one of his demon's being able to take over his thoughts at will.

'_I'll explain later.' _Chaos seemed pleased with his new discovery.

"Awright, now that we're at this damn castle where is that damn robot we were told about?" Barret wasn't to keen on going in now that he saw the castle, but he was still going if for no other reason than he was bored.

As if on cue, a stuffed cat riding a stuffed giant moogle. "Here I am!" The cat said, talking into a megaphone it was holding.

"WHAT!" Barret was furious. He had been expecting a fighting robot, not a stuffed animal!

"Is there something wrong?" It asked, looking at Barret.

"Somethin' wrong! Of course there's somethin' wrong! We're about to go into the most cursed place in the whole damn kingdom and I learn that a stuffed animal is goin' with us and you ask if there's somethin' wrong?" Barret pointed his gun at the robot as he said this.

"H-h-hey! If you kill me, then the king will have you banished! Besides, I'm just here to send back reports to the king." Cait Sith seemed to like the prospect of going into the castle about as much as Barret did.

"Can we get going yet? I'm growing impatient." Vincent didn't show it, but was surprised that he had just said that. The surprise quickly died when he heard cruel laughter in his head.

"I agree. Let's get this over with as soon as possible." Everyone looked at Seto and nodded. Apparently he had just become the leader.

When they got to where they were going to enter, Vincent couldn't help but compare the castle to an iceberg. The only visible part of it was the top of a tower, just barely sticking out of the hard dirt. Looking at the tower, you would never guess that underneath was a castle at least a half-mile wide. This was where the great catastrophe had occurred. This was where, almost 150 years ago, the creatures had come and caused the earth to split open and swallow most of this castle. This was where they were going to find the past of the kingdom they lived in.

They got to the window that was the only entrance or exit of the whole castle. The iron bars that had been put on the window to keep kids from going inside seemed to be still intact. Vincent was beginning to wonder if this was just a small town's attempt to get attention when he saw the gouge marks.

"Look." He said, pointing to the marks.

"$&" Barret answered.

It was no exaggeration that they were an inch deep. It was more like one and a half inches. There were four, all looking like they were made in the same swipe.

"Well, I guess we have to go find out what made these." Seto was hiding it well, but Vincent could tell that he was terrified.

"Awright, stand back everyone!" Barret yelled as he switched out his gun for a chain saw. After a few moments of loud noises and bright sparks, they were in. Cait Sith turned on an electric lamp he had, but it didn't give off much light.

Vincent's eyes adjusted immediately to the darkness, a side affect of having the demons in him. He looked around and noticed that the room they were in was circular, with a rotting door at the other end of the room. He took the lead, and walked to the door to see what was on the other side. The others saw what he was doing, and moved over to get ready in case there was a creature on the other side.

Vincent looked at Barret, who nodded, then he threw open the door. The two immediately pointed their guns into the darkness. Though nothing attacked, they had the strange sensation something was watching them.

Vincent once again took the lead, stepping down into the darkness. The air seemed heavy, like it was trying to press them down into the very stone they were walking on. The darkness seemed impenetrable, like it was a living creature that did not want them to pass. The stone was old, and crumbling, more so than it should have been.

As they descended the steps, Vincent could feel the demons anxiously waiting for a fight. They began to influence his emotions, and he found himself looking forward to a fight with whatever it was out there.

When they finally made it to the bottom of the stairs, they came out into a large, dark, damp room. Their footsteps sounded as loud as hammers striking stone, their breath as loud as the gusts of wind that blow through the mountains. The hairs on the back of Vincent's neck began to rise, giving him the feeling that, once again, they were not alone.

They kept creeping along, trying to make as little sound as possible in what Vincent supposed had to be the ballroom. He was just stepping past a broken chair when suddenly** CRASH! **Vincent wheeled around only to find that Barret had tripped over another chair that Vincent had avoided.

"Barret! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Cait Sith cried, coming out from behind Seto.

"You ain't got no heart to attack! Besides, if it weren't for you and your giant feet I wouldn't have tripped over that chair!" Barret retorted, getting back to his feet.

"Yelling at each other won't solve a thing. If we can't get along then we'll never survive. Now let's keep going." Seto was mad about something, but it was probably the fact the he too had been scared by it.

The four of them made it through the rest of the room without incident, and trying to ignore how loud their feet sounded. Next they came to a very tall hallway. It had beautiful columns climbing the sides, though they were given a creepy quality in the dim light. Vincent stayed just ahead of Cait Sith's lamplight, not needing it to see in the dark. It also hampered his night vision, so he avoided looking at it whenever possible.

As they were walking down the hall, Vincent became aware of a slight shuffling noise. He looked around, but couldn't see anything that would have caused it.

"I heard it too." Seto whispered as he came even with Vincent.

"What do you think it is?" Vincent replied quietly, not wanting whatever it was to hear him.

'_I'll bet it's related to Galian Beast.' _Hellmasker's voice answered in Vincent's head.

"I'm not sure. I doubt it's a creature, though. I believe they do not like light." Seto hid his nervousness well.

'_No, I'll bet it's your mom Hellmasker.' _Galian Beast snickered.

"I hope it's not what I think it is." Vincent replied just as quietly as before.

Seto moved back to the rear so that he could make sure nothing was following them. Vincent returned to searching, sincerely hoping that it wasn't Hellmasker's mom. He was just about to ask Chaos to take over his eyes and look when he saw something move. As he saw it, the darkness seemed to press harder on him. His senses heightened and he could hear each of his companion's breaths as though they were gusts from a tornado. He could feel the staleness of the air more keenly than before. The only thing that was lessened was his sight. Everything seemed to be getting darker. He heard the thing jump at him. He drew his gun hoping he delivered a fatal blow to this thing before it killed him.

The others heard the shot and ran ahead to see what had happened. There, lying in front of them, was the former king of the castle.

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Ok, I'll sic Vincent on you if you don't review this time. I'll update as soon as I can. But it is your job to tell me how bad I am doing. So review!


	3. A Little History

Ok, in this chapter you learn a little more about what happened when the castle sank.

Disclaimer: once again, all I own is the sunken castle.

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"Do you mean to tell me that all them people who died are gonna jump outa the shadows an' tear our heads off!" Barret yelled, pointing his gun all over the place.

"Not right now, but eventually we might have to face this whole castle." Seto seemed disturbed, and Vincent thought he knew why. Seto had known most of these people before they died, and probably had fond memories with most of them. Now that he realized he had to kill them, he was probably having second thoughts about going further into the castle.

"I've gotta report this to the king!" Cait Sith seemed excited about having something to report finally.

"You don't have to go on, Seto. If you want to go back and not have to kill them, no one will blame you." Vincent actually had an emotion in his voice, and it was one no one would have expected. It was _sympathy._

"I…" Seto shook his head. "I don't know. I'll keep going for now, but I'm not sure if I can bring myself to kill some of them."

"Don' worry about that, we'll take care of everyone you can't. Right Vincent?" Barret looked over at him.

'_Of course. Why pass up the opportunity to kill someone? Wait, how are you blocking me?' _Chaos had obviously been trying to say that out loud, but Vincent had learned how to stop him.

"I definitely won't hesitate to kill certain people." Vincent had returned to his normal voice, but Seto knew what he was talking about. After all, he was the one who found Vincent sleeping in a coffin that dated back to before the castle had been overrun.

"Ok, I told the king." Cait Sith seemed proud that he had finally done something useful.

"And?" Vincent asked expectantly.

"He said to keep going, because none of them could have made those marks in the ground." Cait Sith seemed about as happy with this answer as everybody else, but he knew that there was no way the others were quitting now.

They walked on in silence after that, each lost in his own thoughts. The hall seemed to go on forever, and it all looked the same. There was no change in the pattern of the columns, no change in the floor, no change at all. If it weren't for the fact that they never passed the body of the king again, Vincent would have sworn they were going in a circle.

Then Vincent saw something that caught his eye. It was just a small side door, but it seemed to be somehow important. He began to walk closer, the others not noticing since he was not in the light. The door seemed to be calling to him, telling him to open it. He began reaching for the handle, not even drawing his gun.

'_Vincent, what are you doing! Draw your gun!' _Hellmasker, instead of enjoying Vincent not thinking something through, was now terrified about what he was about to do.

Vincent barely heard him, and didn't even register that Chaos made him draw his gun. All he cared about now was opening that door.

"Yo, Vincent, where are ya?" Barret seemed to have noticed that Vincent was missing, but his voice sounded far away to Vincent.

Vincent finally made it to the door, and grasped the handle. He couldn't feel it, could barely think about what he was doing. The four demons were trying desperately to take control, to stop him from opening that door. He turned the handle, and opened the door. Beyond it was… a smaller hall.

Vincent came back to his senses when he opened the door. He shook his head and asked the demons what happened.

'_You went into a kind of trance.' _Galian Beast's voice was the first to answer.

'_Then you started walking over here, and we couldn't stop you.' _Death Gigas was the next to answer, and he couldn't hide the fear in his voice as well as Galian Beast could.

'_Why did you try to stop me?' _Vincent was becoming suspicious about this door.

'_Because, numskull, you weren't even drawing your gun!' _Hellmasker was extremely annoyed that Vincent couldn't even remember what had happened.

'_That wasn't my reason. I felt something forcing you to do that, and it was stronger than I was.' _The other four, including Vincent, were stunned. Something stronger than Chaos? It seemed impossible. But then there little conversation was interrupted when Barret found Vincent.

"Yo, what the hell were you thinking? Just leaving like that without any warning and then not even answering when we called?" Barret was really mad, probably because he had just been scared out of his mind.

"I'm sure Vincent has his reasons. Besides, if he were in trouble, he would have shot at whatever it was, right?" Cait Sith had more faith in Vincent than he was comfortable with, but he did appreciate that.

"Right. Well anyway, I think we should go this way." Vincent motioned to the door.

"Good idea, this hall just goes in circles, if I remember correctly." Seto began to walk through the door. He was followed by Vincent, then by the other two.

They continued in the formation they had had before. Vincent in the lead, Barret and Cait Sith in the middle, and Seto covering the rear. The demons were having an argument over what they should do if Vincent was taken over again, and Vincent was lost in his own thoughts.

'_I still say that we try and take over Vincent's body and turn into one of us if it happens again.' _Hellmasker obviously thought his was the best idea.

'_And I still say that your idea won't work.'_ Chaos was getting mad at Hellmasker now. _'Vincent can block all four of us when he is expecting it, so all we have to do is search for this thing and warn Vincent when it's about to take him over again. If he can't fight it off, then we help him.'_

'_Alright, we'll go with your plan. But if that doesn't work, then we go with my plan.' _Hellmasker was determined not to let his plan just be forgotten.

'_No, we won't do your plan. If Chaos's plan doesn't work, than nothing will.' _Vincent did not want Hellmasker's plan to be approved of by the other demons, especially with whatever this thing was trying to take him over.

After that, the demons started searching for the "other demon" as Hellmasker called it. Vincent began to look for another door, because this hall seemed to be as long as the other one.

He was just getting the feeling that they had been through this part of the hall already when Seto called him and the other two over.

"Look." Seto said, nodding to the wall. Vincent bent over and looked closer. He realized that there was writing on the wall. It said:

This castle does not have much time. I have decided that it will be my next target, and nothing can stop me. So listen well, all you foolish humans. You can either surrender now and be my slaves, or you can all be killed. It is your choice, and that choice will be what decides your fate. Choose wisely.

Vincent's eyes widened when he realized how it was written. Instead of it being scratched into the wall, it was written in _blood._ He looked over at Seto.

"The night before this was discovered, the castle's head scientist, Professor Gast, was found murdered in his lab. That morning, this was discovered and Professor Gast's body was nowhere to be found. The king decided not to surrender, and everyone agreed with him. My father told me to get away from the castle until I heard that it was safe." Seto seemed far away, talking more to himself than anyone else. "That night, there was a huge earthquake. I ran back, against my father's orders, and watched as this castle sank into the ground. It almost killed me." He looked down, trying to hide the tears that came to his eyes.

"So they didn't come unexpectedly." Vincent said, looking at Seto, who shook his head. "Do you have any idea what caused the earthquake?"

"No, unfortunately. All I know is that it was somehow linked to whoever wrote this." Seto's voice seemed almost monotone now.

"Well, I guess we'd, uh, better get goin'." Barret said nervously.

"Yeah, let's go." Vincent was beginning to suspect that whatever wrote this was the same thing that had taken over him.

They resumed formation, and began to walk again. The hall began to change now, but not for the better. There began to be gargoyles that watched their progress. There were ugly carvings on the wall. The darkness began to become thicker, the radius of light that Barret and Cait Sith walked in began to shrink.

'_Vincent!' _Death Gigas' voice rang through his head.

Vincent prepared his defenses, and just in time. He felt the presence trying to get in, trying to take over. Then he sensed it realize that he was blocking it, and changed from subtlety to force. Vincent let out a cry as he felt it hit him. The others came running over and found him writhing on the ground.

"Vincent! Vincent, what's wrong?" Seto ran to his side, but Vincent pushed him away.

'_Come on, let's help him!' _The four demons lent him their strength, but the other mind was still more powerful. It looked like they were going to lose, when it left as suddenly as it came.

Vincent got up and shook his head. He hurt, but seemed to be ok.

"Yo, what the hell happened? You yelled and suddenly you were on the ground writhin' like a snake!" Barret, despite pretending not to care, really was concerned.

"Something attacked my mind. Something powerful." Vincent replied as he tried to clear his mind. But then he saw something he hadn't noticed before. There was a hidden door in the wall. "Seto, where does that door lead?"

"It leads to… Professor Gast's lab. I guess that's as good a place as any to start looking for clues as to what we're up against." Seto began to move towards it.

Vincent walked over to it. He got ready to open it, and looked at Barret. He nodded, and Vincent flung open the door once again. He pointed his gun into the room, and the others watched in horror as a tentacle came out and dragged Vincent in.

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Here you go. For any of you Vincent fans who are wondering why the demons are helping vincent, they believe that the only ones who areallowed to take him over are them. And they'll take you over if you don't review! 


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